While Summer Book Bingo has featured “Banned” as a category for many years (2015-2017) and “Banned or challenged book” in 2022, we still get reader requests to feature “Banned Books” as a category every year. As book bans are increasing, it’s not surprising that readers want to highlight this, but we mostly see the same books (looking at you, 1984) each year, without the opportunity to highlight more recent titles. So, the team developing the board decided that “Censorship” might be a more fruitful way to explore this topic.
Here are some fiction and nonfiction reading ideas for your Censorship category square:
Dangerous Fictions: The Fear of Fantasy and the Invention of Reality by Lyta Gold (nonfiction)
The fear of fiction or stories and what they can do is essentially, Gold says, the fear of other people. Gold’s chatty and sometimes snarky exploration of fiction and its uses offers rich exploration of topics such as book bans, whether stories can inform or harm, and whether stories truly create empathy. Through lively examples in history and recent events in popular culture, this book makes learning about fears surrounding fantasy and reality entertaining and, dare I say, fun!
The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa (fiction)
This is a dystopian novel, translated from Arabic, about a society controlled by a government that has overthrown democracy and installed a paternalistic and controlling society aimed at eradicating the imagination. The main character becomes a book censor who inadvertently falls in love with books, starting with Zorba the Greek. This felt like a cross between Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett and also offers a conflicted character who finds that story is, indeed, powerful—and worth protecting.
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (fiction)
Titular character Lula Dean is a widowed empty nester with an axe to grind and her moment to shine has come. Lula Dean takes a stand against books she deems inappropriate in the high school library, so she forms a group to support her and creates a little library of her own with more suitable titles. That is until someone sneakily swaps the books in Lula’s little library with challenged books instead under her slipcovers. This subversive act sets off a chain reaction in this Georgia town that will make you laugh, cry, and keep turning the pages.
Brother Brontë by Fernando A. Flores (fiction)
It’s 2038 in Three Rivers, Texas where authoritarian rule under the thumb of a tech tycoon mayor is the order of the day. Books and reading are banned and Prosperina and Neftalí may be the last two literate citizens hell-bent on fighting for a better world. Kirkus called this “a wild ride of a novel” that is “frighteningly plausible.”
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones (memoir)
Libraries and librarians have been at the forefront of defending the Freedom to Read, but not without great risk. In 2022 as a middle school librarian in Louisiana, Jones spoke in defense of LGBTQIA+ books in the school library at a library board meeting, but soon after suffered harassing emails and threats to her safety. Defending intellectual freedom, which includes access to diverse collections and the rights of others to self-determine, is a part of any librarian’s role, but coordinated attacks in this country have made this role and the safety of people and institutions trying to fulfill access to information all the more dangerous. Kirkus said: “Ultimately, she writes, “everyone in the United States should stand up for intellectual freedom and stand against censorship, regardless of party line. You start banning one thing, and you’re on a slippery slope to banning everything.” A useful book for readers interested in better understanding a persistent problem.”
Get more ideas for the Censorship square here!
~posted by Misha S.
For more ideas for books to meet your Summer Book Bingo challenge, follow our Shelf Talk BookBingoNW2025 series or check the hashtag #BookBingoNW2025 on social media. Book Bingo is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures and the King County Library System.
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